Top Chef heads to California; possible military spin-off

The next destination(s) for the upcoming season of Top Chef has been revealed!

Bravo’s cooking competition Top Chef announced earlier this week it will be filming its next season in California. This will be the third time the Golden State has hosted the series: the first season way back in 2006 (were we ever so young?) took place in San Francisco, followed immediately by Los Angeles as the host city.

This time around, six cities will host challenges for the cheftestants. San Francisco and LA are back in the mix (flashback challenges, perhaps?), with Oakland, Palm Springs, San Diego, and Santa Barbara experiencing knife-packing along the way. One challenge I would love to see the show tackle: addressing the current drought situation by having limited access to water or water-heavy ingredients.

In the meantime, another Top Chef spin-off appears to be in the works. Eater reports that host Padma Lakshmi, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance producer Nigel Lythgoe, and the Pentagon’s PR department are developing a military-based cooking competition. There aren’t too many details available yet, but Top Chef has done challenges with the military so it shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with a concept. Restaurant Wars between each branch? 5-Star Mess Hall Generals? If this is the theme song, I plan to tune in:

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Mike has been writing about TV online since 2008, when he started the blog WTF Little House on the Prairie? The blog was a project to practice writing about television analytically prior to getting an MA in Television-Radio-Film from Syracuse University, or as he likes to call it "TV Camp." After a lengthy stint at TVLatest, Mike wanted to launch a site that brought in classic TV, diamonds in the rough, and the shows everybody watches. E-mail: mike@whatelseison.tv